woensdag 2 juli 2014

Lego: A Love Story by Jonathan Bender - Book Review

Let me start with this: this book is fantastic!  I really loved reading it, devoured it actually, and it had a serious back tone as well, not being a fan written publicity flyer.



The tale goes about a 30 year old guy, married and childless (they have problems conceiving) and his MTT Star Wars set he got for Christmas.

The set pulls him back from the Dark Ages, and even though he puts it to the side, daunted by even starting to build such a big set, he does start tinkering around with bricks and small sets.  The story devellops how he, as a writer, starts from his poor MoC`s to interviewing people amongst the (american) community like Joe Meno (Brick Journal editor), Dan Brown (owning an unofficial Lego museum) and others.

From how they start setting up conventions, to why they build, Jonathan then discovers his wife likes to build Lego as well and they evolve in a team.

Yes, I`m jealous at the author for that.  The best I get here when I talk passionatly to the GF about my hobby (or any hobby) is that she barely tolerates my rantings without starting to laugh out loud...

His job and his project of writing about Lego takes them over half the States, and then to Denmark where he goes on a tour for the Lego factory and design studios, and learns how legoland itself is run, all the while trying to improve his MoC`cing.

As a year goes by, his wife did get pregnant, he has landed a job as model maker at Lego USA, and the final night before his daughter is born, they tackle together the MTT set.



The book is written in a very enjoyable style and with the necessary self relativation and humor.  Which I think is maybe a skill set needed to talk to the outside world you like building with what they perceive as a kid`s toy in the end.

I also picked up a lot of `ahas` and `didn`t know thats` in the book, like how american Lego events function compared to the European ones, the style of colabs over there and names from the community and how they became `names` in the first place.  

Grab the book of Amazon, it isn`t expensive at all, and it will put a smile on your face and give you a feel good vibe, believe me on this one.

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